Archimedes Teams - a message from Team 296

[Pat Fairbank]

Hello to all Archimedes Teams,

Team 296 will be providing our "Sundial" service to all teams in the 2005 Archimedes division. For those of you who didn't see it last year (in Galileo) or who haven't heard about it yet this year, the service is basically a computerized, enhanced version of the match list printout that is distributed by FIRST – besides displaying the match numbers, times, and alliance and opposition teams for your team's matches, it counts down to your next match and shows the match's call status, all while synchronizing its clock with the playing field every ten seconds (see this page, this thread and this screenshot for more details).

If you'd like to try Sundial out, please bring a Wi-Fi capable computer and watch out for our handout containing the instructions on how to connect. We should have the system up by mid-morning Thursday.

Thanks.

[David Guzman]

wow this really looks awsome

very helpful too, thanks for providing this.

One question does the computer need wirless internete access or could it just have a wireless network?

Dave

[sanddrag]

That is just too cool. Maybe next year you can make it out to Los Angeles with that nifty system of yours.

[neilsonster]

Originally Posted by David Guzman

wow this really looks awsome

very helpful too, thanks for providing this.

One question does the computer need wirless internete access or could it just have a wireless network?

Dave

When their team had it in Mississauga we just needed a wireless network to access it, very useful stuff!

[aziandorkess]

Looks great.. Thanks for doing this! It'd be cool if some of the other divisions would have their teams to set up this system.
And ditto sanddrag- SoCal would love to have this.

[Pat Fairbank]

Originally Posted by David Guzman

One question does the computer need wirless internete access or could it just have a wireless network?

It runs on an intranet - we'll be setting up our own 2-access-point 802.11g network.

[Swampdude]

Thanks guys for providing this. I think it made a difference in out drive teams preparations having a countdown running. Usually you get the announcements but I don't think we had that at Nat's, or none that I noticed. Anyhow, it's a great piece of software and I hope FIRST seriously considers incorporating it.

[Lindsey]

Thank you! We used sundial at Nat's & it was great!

FIRST should defiantly do something like it.

It would be really great if current ranking were incorporated, but I can guess how much work it would be, sweat none the less!

Thanks,
Lindsey & Team 548

[Pat Fairbank]

You're welcome.
Thank you to team 997 for giving us a Gracious Professionalism award for Sundial.

I'd love to hear back from the 40-or-so teams (according to my statistics database) who spent a significant time using Sundial. Any comments or suggestions for things you want to see in next year's edition?

Ideas so far:
- Match results and standings
- Countdown time taken from the server instead of the client, & scrapping or modification of the early warning
- The ability to send notifications to a single team, accompanied by an audible signal
- Something for elimination rounds

[JohnnyB]

It was definitely very helpful man. Thank you. As the arm-operator for team 217, I used it frequently.